Japanese Story

Toni Collette ranks among the great actresses of her generation.

From MURIEL'S WEDDING to THE SIXTH SENSE to ABOUT A BOY to IN HER SHOES, she's proven to be that rarest of gems, the character actress who also gets to be a movie star. She so thoroughly sells her characters that most people probably don't even know who she is, or that the same person played her roles. With JAPANESE STORY, Collette delivers a remarkable star turn, the kind of performance that will make a true believer out of you.

Collette plays a geologist and businesswoman who's saddled with the unpleasant task of showing a potential client, a young Japanese businessman, around his company's mining operations in the Australian Outback. She wants to sell him an analytic software package; we're not sure what he wants, but we are sure that he treats her like the gum under his shoe. But the Outback is a big place. Strange things can happen. People can turn human.

And that's about it for the plot teaser. What really matters here is the force of Collette's performance. JAPANESE STORY is almost entirely about her character's inner journey, and it's a journey she takes without soliloquys. This film hinges upon its star's ability to depict a rich inner life with the slightest of hints, and Collette delivers. Hers is not a classically beautiful face, but it is a classically fascinating one, and she uses it to focus our attention and carry the picture. We grind our teeth with her, we smile with her, we nearly become her in a performance so inviting, so true, that we walk out of the picture putting it right up alongside her very best work.

Simply put, this is an astonishing performance in a very fine picture. Seek out JAPANESE STORY.